Memoirs of a Youth Worker

By Dawn Chambers

Dawn Chambers, a native of Scotland, moved with her family to London where she saw the carnage of World War II.
German bombers had demolished many houses in her area, leaving big holes in roofs. Life was a lot different, with children delivering and recycling newspapers to help their families pay the bills.
In the 1960s, she married and moved out of London, living for a time in Hertfordshire. Once there, she and her spouse found the local church needed volunteers to help at their youth club. They applied and were accepted.
In the early 1970s, they settled in Sussex, where they discovered a young lad who loved football but could not find a team to play for. One thing led to another, and the author found herself setting up an under-seventeen football team for him and his friends.
Later, when her son was old enough, Chambers set up an under-eleven team, which was not easy in the 1970s. Players needed to be found and parents needed to be enlisted to help organize endless fundraising events.
Join the author as she looks back at a life well lived – one focused on helping others in and around post-war London in Memoirs of a Youth Worker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728353760

Dawn Chambers

Dawn Chambers is a retired youth worker who enjoys sports – especially football (or soccer). Chambers is married with two grown children and lives about twenty miles from Windsor Castle in England.

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© 2020 Dawn Chambers. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  05/28/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-5377-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-5376-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1   Youth Work

Chapter 2   A Bit Here and a Bit There

Chapter 3   Working for the Council

Chapter 4   Rules, Regulations, and Training

Chapter 5   My Partners and Some of Our Adventures

Chapter 6   The Sunlite Kids

Chapter 7   The Foreign Trips

Chapter 8   The Shows

Chapter 9   Other Projects

Prologue

I was born near a railway line at the bottom of a mountain in Scotland. When I was three, the war ended. My father had left the army, and we all moved to London, where his parents lived. We rented a maisonette near the top of a steep hill in south London. In 1948, my little sister arrived.

At the end of the war, there was a big problem finding schools for all the children, as so many were conceived when the soldiers returned from the war. We were called baby boomers.

My mum took me to start enfant school when I was five years old. There was no room at the school, and my mother had to take me home and return when I was six.

A couple of years later, I moved about a mile from my junior school. I was at this school until after my eleven-plus. Children had to take exams before they went to their senior schools. Because there was a shortage of schools, the council organised a carousel, where we would keep moving from one school to another every two years.

Exams are of course so the authorities can grade the children and decide which school to send the children to. If we did very well, we could go to a grammar school. Otherwise, it would be a secondary modern school. Even then, we were graded to determine what class or stream we would be put in.

It is decided at the tender age of ten how clever we are and where we should start our proper education. The problem is that children are all different. Some are quick learners. These ones do well and pass their eleven-plus exams. They could often end up at a grammar school.

Then the council is left with children who are slow learners. It takes them a while to absorb the information. Other children learn later in life. Of course, there are those who could do with extra support. Years ago, children in this section would be left behind. Now they would have the extra support they need, such as extra lessons or one-to-one teaching.

I failed my eleven-plus exam. I had only been at school for four years, and I spent the first year or so playing and learning my times tables.

After leaving school without any qualifications, I went to night school, and at the end, I passed eight certificates. The subjects I passed were all of an O-level standard.

I have included this in the book because I am trying to make a point that children should not be graded at just ten years old, for many children are late learners. They should not be held back but supported.

I next moved to a school down at the bottom of the hill where I lived. Then I spent a year at the secondary school next to the enfant school where I’d started. For my last year at school, I went to a brand-new school about five miles from where I lived.

I left school when I was fifteen, so I spent nine years in full-time education. Children now stay in full-time